Tag Archives: war

Rejoice with the angels!

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Proper 19C.  11 September 2022. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28. It will be said a hot wind comes from me…toward my poor people.
1 Timothy 1:12-17. But I received mercy.
Luke 15:1-10. This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

O God our help and our home, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Hello! I’m so glad to see you. I’ve missed you! This morning I want to invite you to reflect with me about sinning and repenting. How’s that for my first sermon out of the gate after vacation? You may know that in our lectionary cycle of readings, the pairing of the First Testament reading with the Gospel is random during Ordinary Time. That is, we hear large segments of Hebrew scripture, scheduled without consideration of the Gospel appointments. So the pairing of Jeremiah and Luke is coincidental. Today, we also hear Psalm 14 and a reading from 1 Timothy. In seminary, preachers are admonished to stick with one lesson in our sermons, but I just can’t do it. I hear the readings in conversation with each other, even if they weren’t designed to be, and in conversation with us, even though they didn’t anticipate us.  Continue reading →

Do not be afraid.

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9th Sunday after Pentecost, 7 August 2022,  The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski

Genesis 15:1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1.  Do not be afraid, little flock.
Luke 12:32.

On the island of Torcello in the northern reaches of the Venetian lagoon, stands a Romanesque basilica built by the Veneti people over several centuries. They had left their cities on the mainland to seek refuge from the ravages of the Huns. There they worshipped with their bishops until malaria drove them to the group of islands we know now as the city of Venice. The basilica remains on the almost-deserted island, a relic of earlier Christian worship.

Directly in front of the central doors of this basilica, which is really a museum, are the
ruins of an octagonal building which was pillaged for marble and bricks for constructions in Venice. It served as the baptistry, a separate building which opened into the basilica’s narthex. Looking into the eight-sided ruin, which had been topped by a dome, one quickly realizes that the structure focuses on the exact center where a large stone basin would have been placed. We know a good deal about the practices of the first centuries of the Church through the writings of hierarchs and scholars of the time, but also from the structure of buildings, many in ruins like Torcello’s baptistry, built around the liturgies of baptism and the Eucharist. Continue reading →

A Shade Braver

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Proper 28B.  14 November 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 1:4-20. The Lord remembered her.
Hebrews 10:11-25. Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
Mark 13:1-8.  This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

O Eternity, O Word of Thunder, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

We are nearing the end of our liturgical year. This is the last we’ll hear from the Gospel of Mark for another three years. It’s highly ironic to me to pray the beautiful words of the opening collect about scripture (to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest) on a day when our appointed Gospel lesson is the beginning of the apocalypse in Mark. Episcopalians generally don’t like dwelling on the fact that we have apocalyptic scripture. We don’t know what to make of it, and we’d rather not have to try.  Next Sunday, which is the last Sunday in our liturgical year, we will hear a passage from the Passion narrative of Gospel of John. It is a jarring lectionary move; you’ll have to keep your knees bent slightly so that you don’t topple over! Continue reading →

A Remembrance & a Legacy

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In Commemoration of the Centennial of the Armistice of World War I
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, November 11, 2018; Rabbi Howard A. Berman

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44
One of the major themes of my teaching to our people at Central Reform Temple, and to all of you here at Emmanuel Church, is the importance of history as a source of spiritual truth and guidance. History, its chronicle and commemoration, and its enduring meaning and message, is a fundamental dimension of both Judaism and Christianity. The Hebrew Biblical foundation that both of our faiths share, teaches that God works through human history. The primary focus of our Scriptures is historical narrative. The events, progress, and personalities that shape history–whether global, national, communal, and even our own personal experiences–are clear revelations of God’s presence and will in the world and in our lives. We believe that the good and noble people and events in human experience have been instruments of God’s blessing, love and mercy. And yet, we also know that the evils of history, the sufferings and injustice we have inflicted upon each other, have also been signs of our failure to heed God’s will – not of Divine responsibility for suffering, but rather our human culpability for the tragedies of our past. We have been given both a clear set of moral and ethical imperatives in Torah and Gospel, as well as the innate free will to make our choices, collectively and individually, to either follow God’s law of love and justice and peace by choosing good and life or by choosing evil and death, and bringing upon ourselves, our world, and our children, the consequences of pain and suffering that have, sadly, largely marked the chronicle of human experience.

Continue reading →

1945

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  • 8 May. Germans surrendered, leading to the end of World War II in Europe.
  • 15 July.  The Rev. Dr. H. Robert Smith, formerly of Grace Church, Newton MA, accepted the position of Minister-in-Charge and served until a new rector could be called.
  • 6 & 9 August. US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japanese  surrender a week later.
  • 28 November.  The vestry assigned the church’s reading rights at the Boston Athenæum to rector-elect, The Rev. Robert Gifford Metters.